fragments
by uchihasass
Summary: it's a terrifying thing to have someone you've looked at for so long to be suddenly looking back at you. [sasusaku]
1. fragments

fragments

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i.

naruto heals fast, new cells stitching over the gaping emptiness of his missing arm quicker than kakashi steps foot into his new office as the rokudaime. sasuke doesn't share the same propensity for hasty recovery. his severed arm is a messy matter, much like his severed ties to the place and people he once called home. it takes more time and care. it takes sakura visiting his hospital ward every morning and every evening to change his bandages, to interrupt the thoughts he sits stewing in all day, to open the curtains and let some sunshine into the room. at first, she thinks she's intruding. every time she walks in, he looks up at her with mismatched eyes that look almost annoyed. but then she remembers, that he's never had any qualms about calling her annoying. she trusts he'd let her know as much if it were the case, so she takes his silence as tacit acceptance. acceptance, perhaps, is reaching, but sakura has never been anything if not cautiously optimistic.

ii.

sasuke never says much, but he has an armory of words that he borrows from often.

_thank you._

_shut up, dobe._

_tomatoes would be good._

_konoha's different now._

_i'm sorry. _

the last one always surprises her. not because she thinks him above the humble act of apologizing, but because it comes at unexpected moments. while they're taking a quiet stroll by the grassy riverbank, or when walking home from ichiraku after dinner with naruto and kakashi, or more puzzling still, after a sparring session that ended in a tie. it always comes with no context, no preamble. sakura accepts it with a smile. she thinks one day she will tell him to stop. one day she'll tell him, the first sorry he offered was more than enough. (she won't tell him this, but it was also more than anything she'd hoped for). for now though, she doesn't say anything. she suspects the sporadic apologies are more for his own benefit, more so he can justify his place next to her, to himself.

iii.

it's a terrifying thing to have someone you've looked at for so long to be suddenly looking back at you. it's exciting, thrilling, and a little disorienting, but it's terrifying above all else because it feels so surreal—like you're in the middle of a precious, fleeting dream and no matter how hard you try to hold on, startling awake is inevitable. so sakura impresses everything to her memory, everything from the deliberate, scorching stares he fixes her with quite often to the unsure, nervous glances he occasionally steals, when he thinks her attention lies elsewhere. that is the thing he hasn't yet figured out about her though. that when it comes to him, she is always paying attention.

iv.

they sit side by side, watching the village from atop the hokage mountain. there is something about the quiet, which blankets midnight konoha that is comforting. even as she sits holding her breath and holding hands with the boy, who, she fears, will leave her as nothing more than a pile of ash for the wayward wind to scatter away one day. sasuke's hand on her own is warm, like a spark just coming to life. she shivers at his touch, because the blood that runs in her veins is kerosene and setting ablaze whole is only but a matter of time. she lets out a sigh and watches her breath like white skeins of smoke in the cool night air. too late, she realizes that this has given her anxieties, her wordless insecurities away. he squeezes her hand―a soft, almost impalpable caress, like it was the wind that had just reached out to her, not his heart―and suddenly, she is at ease.

v.

sakura cannot sleep the night before sasuke is set to leave the village. _goodbye again_, she agonizes, _i cannot say goodbye again_. the words play like a broken record inside her head all night long. when morning comes unbidden, she walks to the gates, steps heavy with an all consuming desire to turn back the hands of time to the day he came back, or really just any day after that, but this. she makes a promise to herself. she will not say goodbye, because this is not goodbye. on a whim, she asks if she can accompany him instead. he declines, kindly, and taps her forehead―two decisive, fingers against the big, horrible expanse of her forehead.

"maybe next time… and thank you."

it's only when she is losing sight of his distant back that she realizes he didn't say goodbye either.

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><p><strong>an**: first in a potential series of ss drabble. please leave a review if you feel so inclined.


	2. heart's a mess

heart's a mess

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vi.

she is so innocuous at first that he doesn't mind her lingering around his hospital ward. she's been doing it for so long—before he left and he could hardly stand it, in his dreams when he was in Oto and couldn't understand why he kept seeing traces of soft pink when he closed his eyes—that this, he thinks, this lingering in close distance, in flesh and bones, couldn't be much different. he is wrong, of course, and he knows it. but if sasuke's learned anything, it's that lies are often more comforting than the Truth, so he'll live this lie one more day. he'll tell himself she is innocuous, and let her be.

vii.

some things never change, and sasuke quickly finds that naruto's disturbing fondness for ramen is one of those universal constants. they slip into a routine of sorts, weekly meet ups at ichiraku. they being what was once team 7. he doesn't think of them as a team. not anymore. they're broken, and it isn't the neat kind where you can piece everything back together and will it to become whole again. there are sharp edges, missing pieces—what they are now is irreversibly incongruous with what they used to be. but they try still, to salvage whatever is left. he notices during one of these dinners that she is noticeably more at ease with naruto and kakashi around. when it's just the two of them, she is unfailingly kind, unbelievably patient, but every single one of her words, every last movement is tinged with a wariness reserved only for him. he is slightly offended when this realization hits him, even though he has no right to be. he has given her enough reasons, after all, to warrant a lifetime of cold shoulders. but she finds it in herself to forgive, so he finds it in himself to swallow his indignation.

viii.

they spar sometimes. he is missing an arm, but even if he still had it he suspects she could turn him to dust without breaking a sweat if he wasn't careful enough. he sees the affection in her eyes turn to cold, steely concentration the second they begin. her movements are a little uncouth, a little too impulsive to land a hit every time, but a single hit is really all she needs. she keeps him on his toes. he is light-headed around her, often his heart will begin beating faster when she walks into a room. he is so unfamiliar with these feelings that at first he isn't sure what is happening. is he nervous she will punch him when his guard is down and ground him to rubble? is he afraid the warmth in her eyes will one day be replaced by bone chilling hostility, like his brother's did? the unwitting comparison to his brother does it. slowly, but definitively, he understands why she has lingered in his memories for years.

ix.

no one told sasuke he was a limitless vessel. he figured that out on his own, as he felt his rage seep into every capillary inside his body, spreading ever more day by day, until it had somehow taken on a life of its own, until somehow—it had become bigger than him. it is not easy to unlearn hatred when it becomes you. it is harder still when the object of your hatred is suddenly absolved of all his crimes against your heart. he was vengeance personified once. then, without warning, he was nothing. a limitless vessel, turned inside out and left empty for the winds to howl against. emptiness is quite a hard place to fill, but sakura easily burrows a new corner inside his heart. he is a limitless vessel after all, so there is room past his emptiness for her.

x.

she has eyes like a spell, enchanting, soothing, and a smile like sunrise. sasuke hasn't craved human touch in a long time, but he wonders what her fair skin will feel like under his calloused palm. he has always prided himself for being disciplined, but when it comes to her, he finds that his almost a decade long exercise in restraint has been for nothing. he wants to memorize the contours of her face with his hands, because capturing them with his sharingan simply isn't enough. but he is undeserving, oh so undeserving. he will accept her kindness, her love. he'll allow himself that much, but he won't take her face in his hands, and kiss her like he wants to.

before he leaves the village again, he leaves her with a token of promise. a promise he inherited from his most precious person, he gives it to her like he's handing her his heart. here's finally a truth he's not afraid to face, he thinks. but even that is a lie, because she's had his heart for a while now.

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><p><strong>an**: big thanks to SouthSideStory for reading this over and letting me know it's not trash!


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